Zendesk's new AI helpers handle employee requests from start to finish

Zendesk has launched AI helpers that can take an employee request, such as a new laptop or a letter confirming employment, and carry it through every step until it is done. The company calls them Employee Service AI Agents. They work alongside a companion tool called Advanced Action Flows.

What it does

The agents are built to understand what an employee needs and then coordinate the tasks involved, following the company's own policies. Advanced Action Flows are the step-by-step workflows behind them. Zendesk says they can handle onboarding and offboarding, laptop management, access approvals and employment verification letters.

Employees can make requests inside Slack or Microsoft Teams. That means no switching to a separate system just to ask for help.

Easier to set up

Building this kind of automation used to take technical know-how and a lot of manual setup. With Advanced Action Flows, IT administrators can describe what they want in plain language. Zendesk says this shortens the path from idea to working workflow. One head of support in early testing said, "I'm not a software engineer, so it's easy to build the flow and fix it."

Early results

During five weeks of early access, more than 300 customers ran 6 million workflows. Zendesk estimates that saved about 500,000 hours of manual work. Those numbers come from the company, so they show what Zendesk reports, not what every business will see.

What to watch

Zendesk's pitch is that stalled handoffs cost productivity, especially when a new hire waits on paperwork. But the setup and learning curve can be real, especially for teams new to automation. Businesses may also need to update internal policies so they match what an automated workflow will do.

• Who approves access requests, and under what rules
• What counts as a standard laptop or equipment request
• Who owns fixing a workflow when it breaks

What happens next

The features are rolling out more widely. The material does not say what they cost, which Zendesk plans include them or exact release dates. Businesses interested in trying them will need to check with Zendesk for those details.